When boondocking goes bad

Yesterday I mentioned that we were boondocking for a week in a national forest area. We were about 15 miles from Butte, MT. in the mountains. Since we were at higher elevation, it was much cooler and there were quite a few 4 wheelers, and people just driving down the dirt road. We parked about a block off the main dirt road going into this area, and just assumed it was part of the national forest like everywhere else up there. All the people made me kinda nervous, especially since Butte was hardly what I would call a nice place. But, we had a whole week before going to Bozeman so we were making the best of it.

Until it all went bad.

Tuesday night at midnight Torrey started growling, then barking. This dog never, ever barks unless she feels there is a reason to. Well there was this time. A sheriff came and knocked on our door.

Al flew out of bed to see who was out there, I’m sure he was relived it was the sheriff. The sheriff proceeded to tell him we were on private land, the land owner was a known ass, and we had better leave at first light to avoid any confrontation with said land owner. We have been boondocking different places, in different states for 4 years now, and this was a first. We are of course smart enough to look for signs, or fences, or anything that would indicate any area belongs to someone. Nothing here, not one single solitary clue we were on private property. Needless to say we did not sleep well the rest of the night. We got up at 6am made coffee, fed the dogs, packed up and left. We stopped at Wheat Montana in Three Forks had breakfast and figured out what to do next. We found a boondock spot on Freecampsites in the small town of Townsend, so we headed there. After parking the trailer, having a nap, and some lunch, Al started looking at Google earth. He could see some places worth checking out, so we all jumped in the truck. Long story short, we found a much better spot, went back and packed up the trailer…again, and moved, again.

This is our home for the next 7 days, and the view out my front door.

This is Canyon Ferry reservoir, a nice size lake on the Missouri river. There were so many places to boondock, we had a hard time making a choice. My kind of place.

A wonderful storm rolled in creating some great cloud formations, and nice lighting. And lightning. This was a pure luck shot.

Roxy had to sit in between us while the thunder was happening. Torrey was in the house, she feels safest there.

There are a lot of things to see here, and of course we will be able to swim in the lake. I think we’ll be good for the week.

We boondock almost all the time because A) We can’t afford RV parks all the time, and B) We don’t want to be in an RV park anyway. Why be around a bunch of people, when you can have peace and quite instead. This situation was certainly unusual, and probably will never happen again. We always feel safer out in the middle of nowhere, but this area definitely had a weird vibe that I could feel. I am having mixed feelings about Montana. The jury is still out if I like this state or not. I am withholding final judgement until after the Bozeman show.

I did say more than once yesterday….”I just want to go home to Wyoming.”